Name Matters For Everybody
Name
Matters
When I say name matters. Memories come flooding down
the lane the year 1997, May 31st the day I completed teacher’s training,
and received an appointment order from a reputed educational institution Good
Shepherd Mysore India.
As a Novice teacher, my goal on the first day was to
meet and to greet the students and forge a rapport of good will. I greeted the
class with the smile said I am Lucy….Immediately I heard a retort so what? The
class was filled with peals of laughter. On further scrutiny the voice had
emanated from a girl sitting in the corner towards my left, I looked at her for
a moment and continued without prodding on her identity. During the break, I
went to the room; the liveliest room in the school campus. Staffroom you know
the reason and Inquired about the student, 48/60 teachers that is 80% said she
has behavioral issues. She is Restless, careless, destructive ,disruptive ,inattentive as a result Assignments are not
submitted on time, in assessments her marks are below average, attendance only
60% the list was endless., when I heard these remarks I felt she was a
challenging student for these 80% of teachers.
On
further investigation, I met her grade 3 teacher , she said Sheela was an outstanding
student she lost all the interest in studies and other activities after her
mother’s death in grade 4.with the heavy heart I called her father he was
almost in tears when I spoke to him, in addition he said ,Ma’am I am a diamond
merchant ,I really can’t find time to sit with my child .I completely agree
that it’s because of me she is not doing well in the school. He
literally begged and said can you
please take care of her. I was touched with emotion when he spoke about her
mother, for I had lost my mother when I was in grade one. I said as a teacher
it’s my duty I will take care of her. I started observing her from a distance.
One day I met her in the corridor and said ,Sheela
you are a good sprinter. She was surprise; I knew the reason for her surprise.
It was our first meeting, which later built a strong
relationship. A relationship of trust. She started sharing all her negative
experiences, which she had with her previous teachers and she said, it is
almost six months past still my math teacher does not know my name. My science
teacher calls me dumb and my friends’ call me nut...I feel putting an end to my
life... This conversation
reverberates , today when I enter the
class I tend to memorize the names of my students who are under my tutelage.
Today Sheela is in U.SA as a software engineer, before her departure she came
to express her gratitude for those 10 months in grade 6 that sored her
confidence changed her perspective about teachers. She said ma’am I still
remember the day you called me by my name and that was the day I decided to
study for sake of you and my friends stopped calling me dum, I felt somebody
loves me. I said Sheela It is I who
should say thank you. for making me to realize that name matters.
As educators and parents let us not tag them with
price less names. so,
let us call each one by their own name.
We must be aware, that there are laws, both
federal and state laws, forbidding teachers’ parents and peers from verbally
bullying a child. According to a Finnish study , young kids who
were often verbally bullied between the ages of 8 to 14 are more prone to
develop mental problems that require treatment when they grow up, Live Science reported.
Dr. Andre Sourander, a professor of child psychiatry
at the University of Turku in Finland, found out, 31% of these children have highest rates of depression,
Freud and Shakespeare both said misrepresentation of a
name amounts to a misrepresentation of person.
Name cannot be robed, Name cannot be
filched,
Name cannot be criticized But
Name should
be valued. For name matters.
By
AnnammaLucy
Teacher
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